Tinubu Is Asking The Wrong Question: The Myth Of The Independent Governor
By Sola Fanawopo
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is right to demand performance from Nigeria’s governors. But he is asking the wrong question.Telling governors to prioritize infrastructure, food security, and healthcare sounds like leadership. In reality, it sounds like pleading—and a President should never have to beg his own party’s governors to govern. With over 30 governors belonging to the All Progressives Congress (APC), the President’s “reminder” of what governance looks like is not an act of authority; it is an admission of institutional failure.
The Election Machine vs. The Governance Machine
The problem is not that governors lack a manual; it is that Nigeria’s ruling party has chosen to be an election machine rather than a governance machine. Once the polls close, the party effectively vanishes, leaving the business of the state to the whims, capacity, and occasional indifference of individual governors.
This is not how serious systems function. In nations where political parties actually matter, they do not merely contest power—they organize it.
The Global Standard
The Communist Party of China does not “request” provincial performance; it enforces it through rigid structure and consequence.
The Historical Standard: Nigeria once understood this. Under Obafemi Awolowo, the Action Group did not wait for premier to “do their best.” It imposed a non-negotiable vision, free education and regional development, and ensured its execution. The Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) followed this same disciplined template.
The Rise of the “Independent Contractor”
Today, that discipline has evaporated. We have inherited a system where governors act like independent contractors who happen to share a logo during election cycles. There is no binding development blueprint, no enforceable party doctrine, and, most crucially, no consequence for underperformance.When the President calls for results, he exposes the hollow center of his own platform: the absence of a governing party.
If the APC functioned as a true political institution, the President would not be “urging” governors to deliver roads or food. The party would already have a unified development framework, replete with targets and accountability mechanisms, binding every APC-controlled state to a singular standard.Presidential directives will continue to sound like motivational speeches, strong on intent, but fatally weak on enforcement.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of ideas; it suffers from a shortage of political structure. Until the ruling party transitions from a vehicle for power into a mechanism for policy, these high-level meetings will remain performative.
If President Tinubu truly wants a performance, he must do more than speak. He must build a party that governs.Until then, the real question is not whether the governors will deliver. It is whether anyone is truly in charge of the vision.
© Sola Fanawopo
